{"id":84896,"date":"2026-04-27T05:07:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T05:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/super-shoes-and-perfect-conditions-how-sabastian-sawe-broke-the-two-hour-mark-at-the-london-marathon\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T05:07:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T05:07:19","slug":"super-shoes-and-perfect-conditions-how-sabastian-sawe-broke-the-two-hour-mark-at-the-london-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/super-shoes-and-perfect-conditions-how-sabastian-sawe-broke-the-two-hour-mark-at-the-london-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Super shoes and perfect conditions \u2013 how Sabastian Sawe broke the two-hour mark at the London Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"


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There\u2019s a saying about London buses which can be adapted for the 2026 London Marathon and the sub-two-hour holy grail: you wait ages for one and then two come along at once.<\/p>\n

Nearly seven years have passed since Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 in Vienna, Austria, at INEOS\u2019 carefully curated 1:59 Challenge. The wait for an equivalent performance in record-legal conditions, while always a case of when and not if, had been getting tantalisingly longer.<\/p>\n

That was until Sunday, when Kenyan Sabastian Sawe clocked 1:59:30 in London. Yomif Kejelcha, just 11 seconds behind him, is arguably an even more impressive story \u2014 this was the Ethiopian\u2019s marathon debut after years of success on the track and in the half marathon.<\/p>\n

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\n Yomif Kejelcha, finishing second behind Sabastian Sawe, also broke the two-hour mark (Warren Little\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Two 1:59 marathons at once, while Uganda\u2019s Jacob Kiplimo also ran under the old world record (2:00:35 by Kelvin Kiptum in 2023) to become the fastest third-placer ever by nearly three minutes.<\/p>\n

A quarter of an hour before all this, Ethiopia\u2019s Tigst Assefa had lowered her women\u2019s-only marathon world record. Her 2:15:41 run was nine seconds better than in this marathon last year, and she led Kenyans Hellen Obiri and Joyciline Jepkosgei to sub-2:16 times, the first instance of the entire podium breaking that threshold.<\/p>\n

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\n Tigst Assefa broke her own world record (Alex Davidson\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So what\u2019s going on? A few things have happened at once. The conditions are key. Last year London was especially warm and sunny, while winds made things challenging in 2024. Temperatures on Sunday were around 13C (55F) at race start \u2014 the elite women went off first at 9:05, the elite men 30 minutes later \u2014 and 16C (60F) by the finish.<\/p>\n

For east Africans, these are mild conditions. \u201cWe saw the weather would be good, all the conditions were in place,\u201d Assefa said, through a translator, in the post-race press conference. She has a tendency to go out fast and try to hang on, running 66:40 and 69:10 for the two marathon halves to win 12 months ago. This year she, Obiri and Jepkosgei were even faster at halfway (66:12). Assefa said pre-race that she was in better shape \u2014 the conditions were better too.<\/p>\n

Also significant was the calibre of the elite fields and the pack running. Spencer Barden, the head of elite athletes at London Marathon, told The Athletic<\/em> in a pre-race interview that he makes significant efforts to get the previous year\u2019s champion back. He succeeded with Assefa and Sawe, who retained their titles from 2025 \u2014 the first man and woman to do so since Kipchoge in 2019 and Brigid Kosgei in 2020 respectively.<\/p>\n